Book Information: Karl and Rosa

Döblin’s epic trilogy November 1918: A German Revolution, with its wry humour, boldly original narrative style and embracing moral vision, is his second fictional masterpiece, written in 1948–50. Its final novel, the self-contained Karl and Rosa, tells the story of the explosive events in Germany which ended the revolution of 1918, of the doomed but glorious struggle of the marxist rebels Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg against the German democratic socialist government. Mass demonstrations, incipient civil war … but the leftists are never quite sure they want to fight; by late January 1919 the revolutionaries are defeated on all sides – in the streets but most of all within themselves. Complex and many-faceted, Karl and Rosa centres not on political manoeuvring alone, but on the ideals of revolution.